The Desiring God national conference turned out once again to be invigorating. My wife and I needed to be stirred out of dullness (especially me), needed to rethink thinking as a means of loving God more, needed to be reminded of some basics in this God-centered cosmos. All of the speakers convicted us with their messages. Even Rick Warren, to my pleasant surprise. For instance, he said (as did my hero John Owen long ago in different language), you only know what you practice, only believe what you practice. If we say we believe something and don't act on it, we don't really believe. Sounds like James 2, doesn't it? Faith without works is dead.
The highlight of the weekend was, oddly perhaps, the presentation of John Piper with a Festschrift by editors Justin Taylor and Sam Storms. It moved me to tears. John Piper is, by God's free grace, a truly great man. Yes, warts and all. (If we know how to value greatness, that is, in relation to the object of one's love.) His influence under the sweet, mysterious movement of the Spirit is incalculable. The man's God-centered, Christ-exalting, man-abasing, soul-stirring and soul-satisfying preaching has fed thousands upon thousands upon thousands. It has slain God-belittling pride and man-centeredness millions of times over. And it did so again for me this past weekend.
As Piper approaches his last days of preaching and leading as a pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, we would do well to listen carefully to him. He is one of the greatest preachers, not only of our time, but doubtless of all time. And this, not because he has mastered all the books and advice and how-tos of the preaching sages (I doubt he even reads them), but because God in Christ has been supreme in that holy act, not the sermon. The structure of the message, the expositor's prowess in navigating a passage, the rhetoric of the message, the hearers of that message, and so on—these have not been supreme. God has! God himself in Christ by the Spirit has been supreme. Gloriously supreme! And for this above all else John Piper has been a great preacher. For this he is among the greats of all Christian history. For this I love this man whom I've never met, to the bottom. For it is in this that I and thousands upon thousands have been led to love God more. So for this I bless and thank and praise and exult in God—from whom and through whom and to whom are all things. To him be glory forevermore!
May God be pleased to raise up generations of preachers in the wake of Piper's legacy of God-centeredness to carry on and forward, without shame and without apology, openly and boldly, Piper's vision of God's supremacy in all things for the joy of all peoples. The Church and world need nothing more than God-glorifying, Christ-exalting, man-abasing, soul-satisfying preaching.
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